A survey of farmers has shown feral cats, rabbits, and other large pests are “chewing” into farm profits and conservation in Mid Canterbury and beyond.

The Federated Farmers' national pest survey asked 700 farmers nationwide about the impacts of feral animals.

Pest had cost the surveyed farmers $8.3 million - $2.88 million through pest control, and $5.4 million in lost production.

Federated Farmers said the bill for the entire country could sit at $213 million.

Rabbits were the most abundant pest overall, making up a third (82,609) of all pests (248,395) culled by farmers.

In a press release, pest management spokesperson Richard McIntyre said the survey didn’t account for "the cost of restoring damaged pasture, fixing broken fences or the loss of trees."

He said animals jumping farm fences from land owned by the Department of Conservation (DOC) were the biggest issue.

"DOC [is] widely regarded by farmers as the neighbour you really don’t want to have because they don’t fulfil their obligations on controlling wild animals and weeds.”

He said the $13 million that DOC spends on browsing animal management was not enough.

"If the Government continues to under-invest in pest control, we’re all going to pay the price of declining biodiversity, lost production and reduced exports," McIntyre says.

"We appreciate the Government is under huge financial pressures, but this isn’t something New Zealand can afford to scrimp and save on."

Maps in the survey suggest rabbits, feral cats, Canadian geese and wallabies posed the biggest issue in the Canterbury region.

But pigs and deer pose an issue in Mid Canterbury, said Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury president David Acland.

“There are pigs and deer that have infested down through the rivers. They can both migrate up and down the river quite quickly.”

Acland said pests have rooted up pasture and stolen food from his Mt Somers farm.“I had a significant area of food crop consumed by pigs, it was about a half a hectare of fodder beet.

“I’ve got video footage of some 20 or 30 pigs running across that ground.”

While pigs and deer do populate quickly, he doesn’t “believe they’ve migrated naturally.”

“I know there’re a couple of areas in Ashburton that, anecdotally, have had animals introduced. And now those populations are a significant issue.”

He believed ‘catch-and-release’ hunting fraternities were moving animals and making it easier for them to spread.

He also said hunting competitions didn’t counter pest populations.

“The prizes are all oriented towards boars or stags, and that doesn't really promote animal culling at all, that’s promoting select harvesting.”

“The issue is the population, and population control, which requires everything to be shot.”

While aerial poison drops or shooting operations were an option, Acland said it would be a pretty drastic measure, and would end up being a straight cost to the farmer.

Have deer trampled your fence, pigs muddied your paddocks, or possums spread disease on your farm? Email [email protected] with your feral farm pest story.

By Anisha Satya